Dying Breath
by beautifulmoonright
Summary: A person's true nature can only be revealed in their final moments, believes Kizami.


_'... I... Yuuya... I love you... y—you know... even although...'_

Kizami opened his eyes again. The unwilling twisting feeling in his chest as Kurosaki's pathetic final words echoed in his head was altogether more violent than he had experienced it before. He gritted his teeth, thrusting his blade into the rotten wood beneath him.

What right of Kurosaki's was it to speak those words? How could he have? Death was meant to reveal what was underneath that disgusting, saccharine exterior, not worsen it. The way his muscles had tensed so much around his knife let him know how strongly he had wanted to resist... so why, then, didn't he reveal himself? The strength he had built up from... whichever club it was he did, should have served him well - of course, he'd never win. But he had refused even to fight.

The stupid expression was causing so much trouble. It was empty, and yet somehow... coming from Kurosaki, it had made his heart twitch faintly in a way it never had ever before. What right did he have to say it? He wasn't anything more than a foolish classmate, who seemed to be utterly hell bent on believing that there was some crack of light inside everyone. Kizami gripped his head for a moment; he was furious. There was no noise for him to hear, and nothing for him to listen to except his own, now torturous heartbeat.

Kurosaki couldn't have loved him. He didn't know anything.

The stifling smell of blood - Kurosaki's blood - seemed to be driving him insane. It had only been a little while since he had been enjoying it; the rush of having such a precious encounter had sparked in his veins. The way everything spilled was simply _gorgeous_ to watch - the white, if slightly grimy fabric of his shirt becoming soaked, and the way he crumpled on to the ground as if he was nothing more than a paper doll underneath the sole of someone's foot. And then, there was the pulsing excitement as he kicked him and watched flesh slide over flesh. It was an absolutely thrillingly exquisite experience - but why didn't he enjoy its memory now? Kurosaki had looked almost pitiful with so much lovely red leaking from his mouth, it could have been enough to make him laugh.

He glanced towards the boy's corpse. The crimson pool that surrounded him was getting darker now; it dawned on Kizami for just how long he had been pressed against that wall, like some kind of pathetic, naughty child. Perhaps unwisely, after standing he knelt on the bloody ground next to his former idiot classmate, hanging over his face. His eyes refused, as if they had a mind of their own, to look into the dullness of Kurosaki's. He found himself wishing that he had lived so he could punish him again for causing this feeling.

Yes, that was such a perfect notion... Kurosaki's suffering would be greater than anything else the world had ever witnessed, but with nobody there but the two of them. Kizami wasn't perverse - he had no desire for others to watch as he stripped his life from him again. The palm of his hand pressed to the corpse's throat, but instead of crushing it like he should have, he recoiled, repulsed. Cold flesh sent a shiver down his spine, it seemed.

He could never know, now, whether he had been telling the truth; the revelation that death was meant to give, all of his expectations for Kurosaki's nature... they were spoiled. He gripped the cold, slippery back of Kurosaki's neck in his abrasive grip, and pulled his head up ever so slightly to force himself to watch his eyes; his other hand touching curiously at the entrails that stuck exposedly to the floor. He pulled his bloodied hand back again. How disgusting.

Looking into Kurosaki's deadened eyes, he felt again. A soft twitch of pity, and even less rage; his chest ached at the idea he might feel _sorry_ for someone so laughable. His forehead was resting against Kurosaki's, he had utterly neglected to notice. To anyone else, it might look as if he was mourning.

"Kurosaki... you _liar_."

The words stung him to speak, even although they fell on deaf ears. He knew Kurosaki was a liar. He just knew it. Why, then, did guilt still plague him? He prided himself on not being sentimental; it was cruel of his classmate to pick on him like that. This pathetic boy had known everything; he had watched him almost succeed in demonstrating life's ultimate climax on a smaller scale, and he had watched also as he was punished for it. Kurosaki had watched with righteous horror as his horrid bitch of a big sister struck him. Afterwards, he had taken back his animal in his stupid feeble grip, and when Kizami next looked at him, he was donning his dimwitted, sickeningly cheerful resting expression.

_'I'll see you tomorrow!'_

That was the cry as he ran off back home, and left him with his thoughts; it had crossed his mind that Kurosaki might just be able to fill that position for him, but... it wasn't what he wanted, somehow. He was too old, he supposed, even if he did have the smarts of a child.

Kizami gripped the back of his neck unforgivingly, his nails breaking the skin and making his fingers bloodier. His body ached and his heart pounded; feeling this way was so unfamiliar to him that it was parallel to being allergic. What if Kurosaki wasn't a liar?

He hated himself at the thought. What would he be if he believed him? Kurosaki had nothing to gain by lying to him; he was already dying. It was his final breath, and he used it not to curse him, but to tell him that he _loved_ him.

What if... that _was_ his true nature?

Kizami weakened over the top of him and his own body slumped down. The corpse was stone cold now, the freezing draft in this poor excuse for a school had snatched any warmth that might have remained in his skin. He hated Kurosaki for doing this. If he'd known all along, he'd never have responded to the first good morning. He hated this pain. Watching him die had been a pleasure, but now that he was dead, Kizami felt worlds less than satisfied. _It wasn't fair_. Death had taken the only person that might have loved him, and it was _his own fault._

A pained cry broke from him. It was a sound he didn't even know he was capable of making. His fingers dug into the shoulders of Kurosaki's blazer, leaving bloodied marks. "Kuro-" he hesitated. That sounded stupid. "... _K-Kensuke_... I..." It wasn't perceptible when he finally said it. He whispered it into Kurosaki's stone skin. It wouldn't reach him; he wasn't that sentimental. For years he had longed to see the raw emotions of those around him; he had known this was how to do it. He never could have guessed that this is the trouble it would cause.

He closed his eyes again, still gripping his _best friend_'s body with a degree of tragic desperation. Pulling his blade from the floorboards, he tucked it away again, not ready to give it up.

Was that... _Kurosaki?_

Kirisaki's eyes widened. Could this be some kind of dream?

She had split off from their group to look for the others - and perhaps escape Shimada too. Of all the sights in this school, she'd hoped never to see this. It seemed that he was only sleeping... but the stickiness on the floor below him told her otherwise, even although he was covered up.

Come to think of it, he was still wearing his own blazer. Who had put theirs on top of him?

As she leaned down to pick it up, a terrible pain struck her in the abdomen. A familiar laugh echoed around the room, as she too crumpled on to the ground - but not before she had been roughly shoved away from Kurosaki's body, almost back out of the door. "... Y-Yuuya...!"

"Ah..." It sounded as if he was sighing with relief, like he had just placed down something heavy. "Kirisaki, how... _unfortunate_." There was a smile on his face; it was the same kind of smile that had made her heart flutter. _Had._

He watched as he breathing became panicked, and the disgust with which she noticed the state of her uniform. "D-Did you... how could you?" she spluttered, propping herself up and giving him a furious glare, only to slump back down again. She turned her head to look at Kurosaki. _Why was Kizami's blazer over his wound?_

Kizami turned away from her without answering. There was something strange about him; even although she didn't care, she wouldn't like to die not knowing.

"Yuuya-"

Before she got a chance to say anything further, he had turned and sliced her again. He didn't stop no matter how much noise she made - or how much noise she thought she had been making. Kirisaki's vision blurred, and all she could hear was his... laughter... It sounded strange...

He could have been weeping, if she didn't know him better.


End file.
